


Playing for Keeps

by kitsune13tamlin



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 20:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8728762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/pseuds/kitsune13tamlin
Summary: listening to Rihanna's 'Russian Roulette' gave me an idea for a modern day Yakuza kind of setting.  What would you be willing to do to save yourself from the dark?  What could be even more terrifying than the nightmares that chase you?  In a dark, modern Konoha, there's only one place to go.  Only one man to turn to.  But are you willing to risk it all for a chance?  finished one shot, first person setting.  tw: gun play and potential suicide.  Obvious 'this is fictional and in reality you should never be this stupid' warning applies.





	

The gun makes a dull noise, a soft thunk that announces its presence like the close of a coffin lid overhead or the pop of air near your head that tells you it’s already too late to duck. It’s an ugly thing, large, slick black metal like oil tainting water, like the puddles you splashed through to get here tonight and in the dim light of the restaurant, you can almost see the reflection of half dead neon lighting and corroded metal the way you could in the puddles. Except the gun’s been taken care of with a meticulousness the rotting city hasn’t, and it doesn’t reflect the dim gold overhead lighting. You shiver and hope they think it’s the rain that’s still on you from your trek here, that’s puddled in your worn clothes, slipped down your back and settled in your bones even as it continues its quiet drenching pour outside the windows.

It took all you had to come here tonight. Every bit of cleverness you could muster to find out about the place and the time - and every bit of courage you had left, squeezed out of you in final precious drops like dirty soapy water from a dish towel. The man sitting across from you doesn’t say anything, there’s only the sound of the rain, a slow overhead fan, muffled jazz from the kitchen, hidden behind the polished wood of the now shut swinging doors. The seated man doesn’t say anything, the one standing at his side doesn’t either. The rules have already been explained. There’s nothing left to say, not for them, and not for you with your dry throat and the sound of your own heart pounding in your ears.

When you reach out and take the gun, it’s heavy and your hands are shaking but you know enough to keep the muzzle pointed away from everyone. You may die tonight, soon, in the next five minutes - but if its your stupidity that kills you, its going to be intentional, not because you pointed a loaded weapon at the most dangerous man in the country. He doesn’t look worried. He doesn’t look anything in fact. There’s nothing in those blue eyes, no anticipation, no judgement. He can wait all night for you those eyes say, under their unruly fringe of blond hair. He can wait a lifetime. You wonder, abstractly and unexpectedly, if Death has those same eyes. If It’s been watching you all these years the same way.

“Close your eyes.” Not the man that’s sitting, not your own head either. It’s the silver-haired man standing like a soldier, slouched alertness next to the blond man’s seat. It’s muffled a little through the mask over his lower face, the kind of thing that a thousand people wear during cherry blossom season when colds and allergies are rampant and yet on him it looks more natural. You wonder if he’s got Death’s grin, behind it, to match his boss’ eyes.

If Death has been fragmented in the room completely and is only waiting to come together for you. There’s something in his dark eye, the one you can see, and you can’t tell, with your heart so high in your throat if its mockery or sympathy.

“Sometimes it helps.”

And you do, close your eyes, even if you think it probably makes you look like a coward. But you are and this is your last chance. The man across from you accepts you into his organization and you live - or he doesn’t. And the men chasing you, the very bad men with very bad thoughts about what they’ll do when they’ve finally caught up to you after all this time, they catch you instead and you’ll wish you had a gun with one bullet in it in your hand when they do. Outside its still raining and you can smell something cooking in the kitchen, behind the jazz, something that should be delicious except all you can taste in your mouth is the sharp tin of fear. You have two bullets in the gun. The second is for the man across the table. That’s your second trigger pull. Something to keep things even. But your first trigger pull - that’s for you and it has to come first. You can leave any time you like, but you only get this one chance to prove you’re willing to die for the organization and the man with Death’s eyes in the empty restaurant, rain against the window glass. Pull the trigger, prove yourself, risk it all. Heaven or hell or… hell or perhaps just a worse hell really. You don’t want to die, not on a night when the rain smells like ozone and you’ve realized how beautiful oil and neon mix together in street puddles is, when even the chill of the night outside is precious and familiar - and you almost bolt. Except the bad men are out there and they’re closer than they were when you came in and you’ve run out of places to hide and you realize you’d rather die here, quick, in a room of gold shadows and baking bread with Death’s patient blue eyes on you than screaming and writhing and begging surrounded by offal and entrails and God knows what else, somewhere so deep in the ground that even Death may not be able to find you to end it all.

An inhale and the trigger squeezes under your finger as easy as kissing, as breathing, as dying.

_click_

Nothing. You don’t even realize how hard you’re shaking at first and the tears are streaming and you’re not sure if its relief or delayed shock or something else but there are arms around you and something that smells like dusty cedar and fresh ink and lemon and you’re safe, safe and protected and nothing in the world is ever going to be allowed to scare you again. Not ever again. By the time you’ve realized its an expensive suit you’re huddle against, that you’ve already gotten snot from your streaming nose all over and that the arms around you belong to blue eyes and Death but by then its too late to undo the damage your filthy clothes and messy face have done to something that you couldn’t pay for with a year’s worth of wages. The blue eyes aren’t patient and waiting now though, when you pull back, apologies backing up in your throat, fear starting to rise again. No, now the blue is sad and smiling and gentle and a Pied Piper’s call you suddenly think you’d follow forever, as he crouches down next to your seat and lets you pull out of his arms and away from his chest and shoulder. A slender blond eyebrow lifts and you remember, like a dropped second shoe, that you’ve got two pulls of that trigger. He put you to the test, you’re allowed to expect the same of him now. Except your hand is shaking and you almost drop the gun on the table, head shaking almost hard enough to match the rest of you. It’s then that he finally smiles and it really is Death’s smile because it’s approving and warm and feels like homecoming. Gentle, he lifts the gun, easy in his hand and he rolls the barrels for you to see. No bullet. Not in any of them. Instead he sets it down, the one lone bullet he’d showed you when he’d loaded the gun, when you’d watched him load it into the gun and no one was fast enough to slip it back out without your noticing - but he sets it on the table, upright in front of you as he stands, having been holding it in his palm the whole time far, far from you and any harm it could have caused.

“I would never ask you to die needlessly for me,” its a voice of a storm, quiet, low rumbles and hints of forever as he sits down across from you again. “When I do, it will be because I have no other choice but to lose what is most precious to me.”

“Come on,” the silver haired man is at your side and you don’t think he’s smiling but you think he isn’t mocking either and his hand under your elbow to give you support isn’t demanding, just patient. They’re bringing three large bowls of something that trails steam and incredible smells from the kitchen and the silver haired man gives a nod toward a different door.

“Bathroom. Bet you want to clean up before dinner. We’ll find you a clean shirt while we’re at it.”

You stumble when you stand, your new reality, your new life, still not real. But you notice you don’t flinch at the shadows outside the window anymore and you don’t remember the last time you didn’t. Your hand sweeps out before you let yourself be sheep-dogged into the bathroom with its white towels and its hot water in the sink faucet and your hand closes over the bullet. You pocket it. It’s a promise.


End file.
